Artificial Intelligence
by muddmm
Summary: A human woman manages to shock Khan. ONESHOT


In the bright white room, ice blue eyes bore into honey gold ones demanding answers. She in turn met his challenging stare with one reeking of absolute boredom.

The Augment was not amused.

"You will tell me the code to the warp drive or I will make you."

She raised an eyebrow.

Her chocolate brown hair was a disheveled, curly mess, holding on to its former neatness by only the thinnest of margins. Her yellow engineers' uniform was torn, courtesy of the brief but ferocious fight with the Augment in front of her. The bruise on one cheekbone and the cut above one eyebrow could also be laid at the Augment's feet. Or rather his fists.

She smirked when she caught sight of his cut lip reopening. She had landed a few hits of her own in the tussle.

He had tied her to a metal chair in the holding cell. It was lost on her that only hours ago Khan had been held in a similarly sterile looking room, but he was well aware of his sudden change in circumstances and relished in the newfound sense of freedom.

The rest of the crew of the _Vengeance_ had quickly escaped from the wrath of the Augment called Khan – all of them only too aware of their part in his pain and his wish for retribution. Those few that hadn't escaped in time met the same fate as their former Captain.

She grimaced when she thought of the Captain. He had been a bastard of the first order and she didn't mourn his death in the slightest nor Khan's role in it. What she did begrudge was the psychotic bastard taking over _her_ ship. So she'd quickly changed the codes to the ship's commands (as Chief Engineer it had been accomplished rather quickly) knowing it would take him far too much time to reprogram the system. If he went that route, Starfleet would fin him before he had a chance to escape or repair the ship. However by the time she had finished her adjustments all of the escape pods had left and she was stuck on board with the psychotic super human and a bunch of dead bodies.

"I am not accustomed to being kept waiting. Or being told 'no'. If you do not tell me I will hurt you."

She snorted. "Like I haven't heard that before." It's not that she didn't believe him. She absolutely did. She just wasn't scared and _that_ was what was pissing him off.

"Not from _me_ ," he hissed, his diamond blue eyes flashing.

She waited.

The slap didn't catch her off guard so much as she was unprepared for the force behind the backhanded blow. Her head snapped to the side and she clenched and unclenched her jaw. She shook her head and blinked her eyes, turning back to face her captor. "Ow."

"You are a stubborn woman."

It wasn't a question but she agreed with him anyway.

"Do you have any idea who I am? The lives I've taken? The depths of Hell I am willing to traverse to get what I want?"

She raised both eyebrows this time and shook her bonds. "Think I've got a bit of an idea."

If he weren't so furious with the woman he would have smirked. "I. Am. KHAN. I am a genetically superior being in all ways and you will – "

"I wonder that you've set so much store in something that you had nothing to do with?" She tilted her head at the question, unaware of the effect the move had on Khan.

He stopped, his mouth hanging open. "What?" Khan was not accustomed to being surprised by humans yet this one had not stopped surprising him sense he came across her near the warp cores.

"Well," she began slowly, "It's not as if your superiority is a personal accomplishment. You were conceived in a lab. Genetically engineered. Your 'perfection' as you call it a result of years of study and experimentation by scientists and biological engineers. It's not a reflection on you so much as it is the people you've spent countless hours demeaning as inferior, yet it is the one card you play when every other argument is met with resistance." She finished her spiel and looked to Khan expectantly but the Augment could only stare at her in disbelief. "Which is surprising," she continued, "that you would put such stock in your synthetic perfection because you are highly intelligent due to your making and surely would have realized you can lay no claim to its creation."

There was a long pause where Khan could only stare at the woman in stupefied amazement.

"Well?" She prodded.

Khan got up and left the room.

She waited for nearly twenty minutes before calling out, "Khan? I need to use the restroom!"

Silence.

"Khan!"


End file.
